(Newswire.net — March 27, 2015) — Anyone who dreams of becoming a pilot, especially of commercial airplanes, is required to go through various psychical evaluations ensuring that he or she will always put the life of the passengers before their own life. That is how they are trained all around the world, Velimir Isakovic, president of the Serbian Airline Pilots Association, an institution with 90-years long tradition, told Newswire.net.
Crew Recruitment Management research data shows that 30 percent of all airplane crash incidents in the world are directly caused by the human factor and 70 percent are due to technical issues, Mr. Isakovic told Newswire. Therefore, it is possible for a pilot to make a mistake, even both pilots at the same time, however, a pilot’s decision to deliberately put in danger or kill all the passengers on board is just far off, he said.
A bitter reaction, a shock and disbelief from various pilots associations around the world was due to the initial investigation report according to which, the co-pilot of Germanwings A320 deliberately crashed the plane into the mountains.
Reportedly, the Captain of the flight 4U9525 was trying to get back to the cockpit after the first officer locked himself in. The records showed he was desperately punching in the security code, however, the first officer 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz who had been left alone in the cockpit at the time, allegedly blocked the cabin door, then used autopilot to descend until the airplane crashed into the French Alps killing the 150 people on board.
“He pressed this button [to initiate the descent] for a reason we still don’t know why,” Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said in a press conference. “He didn’t say a single word after the pilot left the cockpit,” he said adding that he could not call this a suicide.
“When you commit suicide, you die alone. When you have 150 people on the plane, I wouldn’t call it a suicide. That is why I am not using this word,” Robin added.
So, what possibly could drive a trained pilot to decide to kill 150 people in a suicide mission? Severe psychical problems could explain that behavior, however, the Captain or someone else in Lubitz’s surrounding might have noticed something suspicious. Instead, Lubitz had passed all the necessary medical tests and was “100 percent” fit to fly, Lufthansa CEO said.
Anyone who knew Lubitz said he was not a loner. “I got to know him…as a very nice, fun and polite young man,” said Klaus Radke, head of the local flight club in the town of Montabaur in western Germany, where Lubitz get his first pilot license as a teenager. Radke described Lubitz to Reuters, as “a completely normal guy.”
“In air crash investigations like this one, the conclusion could not be brought only two days after the crash,” wrote flight Instructor and author of the “Pilot’s Book”, Pilot Zoran Modli on his Facebook post.
He added that he would patiently wait until the investigation is completely over, no matter how many months it might last, giving a fine example to media who instantly blamed the pilot for what happened. However, he also hopes that the investigation results would’t go against his pilot-defending attitude.